Microsoft, Nokia Discuss Mobile App Porting for Windows Phone

In the movie "Jerry Maguire," Tom Cruise uttered the infamous phrase "Show me the money." But in the mobile world, the comparable phrase is closer to "Show me the apps." And when it comes to Windows Phone, the apps picture is fantastic. In fact, as I noted in Here Comes Windows Phone 7.5, there are over 30,000 apps available for Windows Phone already, including about 90 percent of the "must-have" apps cited by iPhone and Android users.

The reason Microsoft is so successful at this game is that the people in charge of Windows Phone developer evangelism at the software giant just get it. They court developers aggressively, they make great efforts to attract developers that already have experience on other mobile platforms, and they write great tools and documentation.

"Today I'm excited to announce new guidance based on migration samples and a SQLite to SQL Server Compact database conversion tool," JC Cimetiere wrote on the Windows Phone Developer Blog. "We hope that these new items combined with our previous extensive guides (for Android, iPhone, and Symbian Qt) will accelerate your ramp up time and improve your experience in porting apps to Windows Phone from iPhone and Android."

geo-location, and group messaging from iOS/iPhone or Android to Windows Phone. Each example includes sample code, porting notes, and other documentation. And with this new version, there's also a SQLite2SQLCE tool that will convert SQLite databases into the Microsoft SQL Server Compact (SQLCE) format supported on Windows Phone 7.5.

Meanwhile, on the Nokia Conversations blog, that company talks up the Symbian Qt porting guide.

"The mapping tool is a utility for developers that serves as a translation dictionary between the Windows Phone platform and other mobile operating systems," the post reads. "The tool enables developers who are familiar with APIs from other platforms to see the equivalent class, method or notification events inside Windows Phone. Intended strictly for developers, the Windows Phone API mapping tool includes core libraries for Qt 4.7 for Symbian, which includes: QtCore; QtGUI; QtLocation; QtNetwork; QtSql; QtXml; QtWebKit; QML Elements; and QML Components. There are also code samples and tutorials to help developers too."

Apple doesn't pay developers to "port" apps because: (1) the developers make money -selling- the apps, unlike, say, Android, (2) ported apps generally suck. This was (and is) true for many cross platform apps in the desktop world and it's true for phones.
But, I can see why Microsoft needs to do this. With a 2% market share, what other approach is there?

M&S??? Surely not the British retail group Marks & Spencers?
Anyway, I think its an excellent deal for developers, simply because they will get their app onto more platforms.
It has a familar ring to it, back in the beginning of micro computing ie the 80s. Having games/apps on different platforms and systems was annoying. Perhaps phones will, in a somewhat more sophisticated way, will become compatible, at least in app environment.